Today, consumers have several alternatives to choose from when purchasing multimedia content, such as e.g. films, games or music. Apart from a traditional, physical purchase of a film, a software game or a record, the increased use of the Internet and mobile telephones, together with the development of services specially adapted for downloading and purchasing of different types of multimedia content have made it easier to put these types of products into market via public fixed and wireless networks.
One powerful feature available today is to provide customers with the possibility to stream music in real time, i.e. listening to a tune while downloading it to a user device. When streaming music, the required throughput must be the same as the coding of the file in order to achieve an acceptable quality when listening to the music. These requirements impose a trade-off between the streaming capacity of the system and the achievable quality after a downloading.
There are a number of wireless and fixed access techniques suitable for downloading of multimedia files available today. FIG. 1 illustrates a user device 100, connected to a server 101, adapted to download multimedia files over a broadband access 102. One broadband alternative for downloading a multimedia file is to use a streaming service via a Wideband Code Division Multiple Access (WCDMA) network. Another alternative is to use a fixed broadband access such as e.g. the Internet. However, if a broadband access network is not available, an alternative, low bandwidth access network 103, e.g. a GSM connection, will be required.
One wireless alternative available today is Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), which is a technique, suitable for providing wireless downloading of larger multimedia files via GSM. One problem with using GSM/EDGE for downloading of multimedia files is, however, that the quality of the streaming service may not be as good as if downloaded from an available broadband access network, such as e.g. the Internet.
In order to achieve a throughput, providing sufficiently high-quality it is required that several time slots are used for the downloading of a multimedia file. Using several time slots and priority in scheduling, however, decreases the capacity of a cell, which in turn decreases the number of simultaneous downloads which can be provided to that cell. When using one time slot, the maximum throughput provided with GSM/EDGE today is 59.2 kbps. For an MP3-file to have a quality comparable to CD-quality, however, a throughput of at least 128 kbps will be required. Thus, for this ideal scenario, assuming the user to reach peak throughput, three time slots (cell(128/59.2)=3) will be required for downloading a music file with adequate quality. This is considered as a quite high amount of the normally offered bandwidth in a cell using GSM/EDGE. The fact that a music file can be downloaded to a home computer and transferred to an MP3-player or a mobile telephone at a relatively low cost, providing a comparable or better quality makes the described multi-slot streaming alternative over GSM/EDGE less attractive and less worth its price compared to other alternatives, available at the market today.
It would therefore be advantageous to find a way to make better use of the available resources used for downloading multimedia files, when downloading, at least partly, over a bandwidth limited connection.
It is also desirable to provide a user the option to play a multimedia file in real-time during download, while using available resources more efficiently during the downloading.
It is also desirable to provide a user the option to play a multimedia file in real-time in a lower quality coding before purchase decision.